The weather here is finally warm enough to set up outdoor learning centers. For one of the centers I set up a sight word activity for the children to do. I purchased river rocks from Menards (most home improvement stores will have them) and painted them with black paint.

I painted the top of the rocks only as I liked the look of the having the natural rocks for the children to feel and explore. Once the paint had dried I took a sharpie oil based medium tip paint pen and wrote sight words on each rock. I also made sure I made two rocks with the same sight words.

I put the rocks in baskets and the children pick out a rock and if they could read what was on the rock they kept the rock out of the basket. If they could not read the sight word they put the rock back in the basket. This can be done as an individual or group activity.

The children also did a sight word match by finding the two rocks with the same sight word. This activity was easy to set up (which I love) and the children really enjoyed working with the rocks.

I made an umbrella roll and cover game for the children to use in our literacy center. I printed the patterns on regular paper ... cut them out and glued them inside a file folder. I assembled the dice by folding on the lines and making a box shape.

The patterns are blank so that you can use them for the skill sets you are working on whether that is numbers ... letters ... sight words etc.

In this activity children roll the dice and find the matching umbrella. They then put a cover-up circle on that umbrella using the same color circle as the umbrella.

Play continues until all of the umbrellas have been covered. Because there are six sides to a dice and twelve umbrellas each letter ... number ... or sight word is repeated twice in the file folder game.

I wanted a sight word activity to round out our butterfly theme this week so I made a pick and cover game for out literacy center. I wrote sight words on the butterfly patterns and glued them inside a file folder. I wrote the same sight words on the blank labels and glued them on to jumbo crafts sticks.

I printed out the cover-up rectangles on cardstock paper and attached a self-adhesive magnet to the back of each one. I placed the sight word sticks in a cup next to the file folder and the children picked a stick and searched for the matching sight word on the file folder game. They then covered up the sight word on the butterfly with a cover-up rectangle. Play continued until all sight words were covered.